]]>RGL agrees with Nikki Turner – business owners should do ‘due diligence’. RGL Management Limited is regulated by the Claims Management Regulator in respect of regulated claims management activities.

Small business action groups ‘should face more checks’ say campaigners

This Is Money, 27.01.18

Campaigners have called for greater scrutiny of organisations set up to sue banks on behalf of small firms.

The SME Alliance has also urged business owners to be cautious when signing up with such action groups.

Its move comes after The Mail on Sunday raised questions about a group set up to sue the Royal Bank of Scotland over mistreatment by its turnaround division.

Concerns over the RBS-GRG Business Action Group, which claims to represent more than 500 small firms it says were destroyed by RBS’s Global Restructuring Group, include the involvement of Gerard Walsh, 60, who was described as a ‘fraudster’ by the Jersey Royal Court in 2014.

He denies any wrongdoing and sources close to him say he was neither a witness nor a defendant in the case and did not have an opportunity to contest the findings.

Sources say Walsh is at the top of the organisation.

But the action group describes him as a ‘voluntary adviser’.

The group had claimed Lord Pannick QC, of Blackstone Chambers, was working on the case. His name was later removed from its website.

SME Alliance director Nikki Turner said proper scrutiny ‘would be good’ and urged people to do ‘due diligence’.

A spokesman said the action group has a good relationship with the SME Alliance, adding: ‘We are run by and for our members, on a voluntary basis, with great economy, and in service of a worthy cause.’

]]>RBS to end ‘nightmare’ as scandal report is publishedhttps://www.suerbs.com/rbs-end-nightmare-scandal-report-published/
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:14:32 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1260RBS to end ‘nightmare’ as scandal report is published The Times, 31.01.18 RBS report to be published The Financial Conduct Authority has said it is willing finally to issue a highly critical report into Royal Bank of Scotland’s scandal-hit restructuring unit. In a remarkable reversal of its stubborn resistance to pressure to publish the...

The Financial Conduct Authority has said it is willing finally to issue a highly critical report into Royal Bank of Scotland’s scandal-hit restructuring unit. In a remarkable reversal of its stubborn resistance to pressure to publish the contentious investigation into the bank’s global restructuring group, the watchdog said that it would produce the full document once it had the consent of the small number of individuals cited in it.

The dramatic change of heart was revealed yesterday after Ross McEwan, the RBS chief executive, had told the Treasury select committee he would not object to the report being issued.

GRG was said to be a “turnaround” division that returned struggling companies to health after the financial crisis. In reality, the taxpayer-owned bank placed little emphasis on helping businesses, instead extracting income from them. Many business owners have blamed the bank for destroying their livelihoods.

The regulator has been the subject of a heated row over its refusal to publish the full report, with sustained criticism from GRG victims, business groups and politicians over its decision.

Three summaries of the findings have been issued, but the FCA has said repeatedly that producing the entire document would not be in the public interest and that there were legal reasons not to do so.

The investigation found systematic and widespread mistreatment of small and medium-sized companies by GRG.

Sir Howard Davies, RBS chairman, told MPs yesterday that the exposure of the bank’s “awful” mistreatment of small businesses had been “the stuff of nightmares”.

Sir Howard and Mr McEwan expressed their regret over the “insensitive” treatment of certain companies during a bruising encounter with the committee.

Mr McEwan was also forced to admit that he had painted a misleading picture of the bank’s restructuring unit. In 2014, Mr McEwan defended GRG from allegations of such poor conduct by saying it “turns round the vast majority of businesses that it works with”.

Yesterday, he conceded this was not the case for the small and mediumsized companies handled by the unit, only one in ten of which were returned to the main bank.

Sir Howard admitted his “acute embarrassment” at an internal memo that told staff to focus on extracting income from “basket case” small businesses and had advised GRG workers to “let customers hang themselves”. Sir Howard said that the memo, which was revealed by The Times and the BBC last year and had been published by the Treasury committee, was “the stuff of which nightmares are made” for a chairman or chief executive. He said that the document had not been widely distributed to GRG staff, but added: “It’s quite hard to believe how people could have written in such a way about customers. We can do nothing but abase ourselves … it is absolutely awful.”

Mr McEwan said that RBS had changed markedly and that he was focused on putting things “right for customers”, including through a GRG complaints and redress scheme.

However, Tony Boorman, managing director of Promontory, which conducted the investigation into GRG on behalf of the FCA, told MPs that RBS continued to dispute “many, if not all, of the significant findings” of the report.

The FCA said that it welcomed news of RBS’s willingness for the report to be issued. “On this basis, we are content to publish the report. To do so will also require the consent of those who provided the information in the report and any individuals who are identified.”

These individuals will be approached once the regulator has decided whether to take enforcement action against RBS over the scandal.

]]>RBS chiefs sorry for ‘awful’ conducthttps://www.suerbs.com/rbs-chiefs-sorry-awful-conduct/
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 15:12:28 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1257RBS chiefs sorry for ‘awful’ conduct The Times, 31.01.18 The chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland has admitted his embarrassment over revelations of how it treated small business customers in a bruising session in front of MPs. Howard Davies, the chairman, described the release of an internal memo showing ways in which bankers were...

The chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland has admitted his embarrassment over revelations of how it treated small business customers in a bruising session in front of MPs.

Howard Davies, the chairman, described the release of an internal memo showing ways in which bankers were given tips around how to squeeze more money out of firms that were already in trouble as “the stuff of which nightmares” are made. The memo included the line that managers should “let customers hang themselves”.

Speaking in front of the Treasury committee in London, Ross McEwan, the chief executive, was also forced to admit that a statement he made in 2014 that the Global Restructuring Group (GRG) turned around the vast majority of businesses that entered it was not true. About 12,000 struggling firms were moved into GRG between 2007 and 2012 but only 10 per cent were returned back to mainstream banking with RBS. More than 30 per cent went into insolvency while others were sold or moved to other banks.

Companies that went into GRG later accused the RBS lender of pushing them into insolvency so that it could pick up their assets cheaply.

The Financial Conduct Authority and Clifford Chance, the law firm, have both separately investigated what went on inside GRG.

Mr McEwan, 60, who took over as chief executive in 2013, said he still disagreed with claims of widespread mistreatment of customers within GRG and that bank staff were aggressive and insensitive. However, he acknowledged there were instances when customers could have been better dealt with, and said: “Let me be clear, we did not do a good job with these customers. In far too many cases this organisation was not giving them the help they needed.

“There are cases here where we did not get it right and our staff did not get it right.”

Mr Davies, 66, said that RBS accepted the GRG unit had complex fees that were “quite impossible” for customers to understand and an inadequate complaints process.

RBS has set aside £400 million to cover the bill for complaints made by customers over their treatment by GRG. Mr Davies confirmed that close to 1,000 complaints have so far been put through its updated complaints process.

The boss of Royal Bank of Scotland was yesterday forced into a humiliating U-turn after defending a ruthless unit long accused of deliberately wrecking companies it was supposed to save.

In a car crash encounter with MPs, Ross McEwan was quizzed about his claim in 2014 that the bank’s notorious Global Restructuring Group rescued ‘the vast majority’ of firms it worked with.

The 60-year-old, who has been RBS chief executive since 2013, admitted his earlier analysis was wrong after it emerged 80 per cent of small businesses dealt with by GRG went bust or remained in dire straits.

‘When you look at the stats, it is not true. The vast majority is not right,’ McEwan told the Treasury Select Committee.

The New Zealander accepted that RBS ‘didn’t get everything right’ but refused to accept that staff had been ‘insensitive and aggressive’ – drawing a furious response from a Tory MP on the committee.

Citing his own experience as a business owner pursued by GRG in 2009, Dumfries and Galloway MP Alister Jack said: ‘The manager who came to see me was not only aggressive, he was thuggish. He shouted at his assistant, reduced her to tears, and as he left my office and headed down the stairs he was still shouting at her.

‘We complained about his behaviour and next time he came he brought his manager with him and we thought there might be better conduct and his manager was equally aggressive. So don’t tell anyone that you don’t, for a minute, think your staff were not aggressive, please. It’s just offensive.’

And Labour MP John Mann accused RBS of using struggling customers as a ‘cash cow’.

The bruising session came less than two weeks after it emerged that bankers at GRG ordered staff to let struggling customers ‘hang themselves’ in an effort to squeeze out every last penny of profit.

The damning memo, written in 2009, shed fresh light on the cut-throat culture at GRG that saw firms stripped bare by bankers who were meant to save them.

Tony Boorman, managing director of Promontory, the consultancy behind a report into GRG for the City watchdog, said the unit had ‘frankly forgotten’ its aim to help rescue struggling businesses and was instead only interested in profit.

‘The focus was almost entirely on the commercial interests of the bank and in particular the collection of charges from customers,’ he said.

Asked about the memo by MPs, Boorman added: ‘It did speak something around the culture of the bank at that time and we saw other comments on file at various points that were kind of similar in tone and spirit.’

He also accused RBS of being ‘unduly defensive’ during its investigation.

The Financial Conduct Authority last night said it will publish the long-awaited report by Promontory into how small and medium sized companies were treated by GRG – but only after it has gained the consent of the individuals identified.

Appearing alongside McEwan at the Parliamentary hearing, RBS chairman Sir Howard Davies said he was ‘acutely embarrassed’ by the memos written by GRG staff.

‘They are the stuff of which nightmares are made as far as a chairman or a chief executive are concerned,’ he said. ‘It’s quite hard to believe how people could have written in such a way about a customer and about customers. It is absolutely awful.’

McEwan added: ‘Let me be quite clear with the committee: we did not do a good job with these customers. At the time when they were in most need of help this organisation in many, many cases and far too many cases was not there giving them the help they needed.’

]]>RBS still giving impression that it just doesn’t get it over activities of GRG unithttps://www.suerbs.com/rbs-still-giving-impression-just-doesnt-get-activities-grg-unit/
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:06:53 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1251RBS still giving impression that it just doesn’t get it over activities of GRG unit Independent, 30.01.18 “Sometimes you need to let customers hang themselves.” That statement infamously appeared on an internal Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) memo that was issued by its Global Restructuring Group (GRG) and then published by the Treasury Committee....

]]>RBS still giving impression that it just doesn’t get it over activities of GRG unit

Independent, 30.01.18

“Sometimes you need to let customers hang themselves.”

That statement infamously appeared on an internal Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) memo that was issued by its Global Restructuring Group (GRG) and then published by the Treasury Committee.

The MPs on that committee could almost be said to have taken that advice to heart in the way they’ve handled hearings involving RBS bosses.

In an earlier appearance chief executive Ross McEwan had said that “the vast majority of firms” handed over to GRG, a unit set up to deal with businesses under financial strain, were “turned around”. This time around he admitted that it was “not right” to have said that.

This was not a good look from a man who, along with his chairman Sir Howard Davies, is trying to convince MPs and the public that the organisation has recognised its failings and changed.

Incredibly, the way GRG conducted itself now stands as an almost a bigger stain on the reputation of the bank, the leading lender to small businesses in this country, than the multi billion pound state bailout that saved it from collapse during the financial crisis.

Both men repeatedly told the committee that they accepted that RBS had got things wrong, but the bank now has a complaints process in place and is determined to regain people’s trust.

Has it changed though? Really? It’s an open question.

The stain on RBS’s reputation has been created not just by the scandal, and a succession of highly critical reports into it and the bank’s general treatment of small business customers, but also by RBS’s response to it.

That point was underlined by the evidence session held before the bank’s bosses appeared before the committee. In it MPs heard from the organisation that wrote the by now infamous, and sharply critical, ‘skilled persons’ review into GRG for the Financial Conduct Authority, which published a summary of the work after a copy was leaked to the BBC.

Promontory Financial’s Tony Boorman said organisations like his, when called in by regulators to do this sort of work, usually expect to receive the co-operation of senior management. However, he described the RBS management as “unduly defensive”.

“This was a difficult enquiry,” he regretfully opined.

Mr McEwan said the bank now accepts the report, and wants to “move on” and put things right. But he said the bank continues, even now, to disagree with some of the points it made.

That is disturbing. Promontory was not seeking to create a splash and generate publicity for itself when it went into GRG. It was hired to conduct an independent assessment of what went on there under the assumption that the work would be kept private, as these reports usually are.

What it found did not reflect at all well on the bank, which put its own interests first, managed conflicts of interests poorly, and left a trail of misery in its wake. The hearing underlined that. MPs received a blizzard of tweets from people saying they were among those hurt by GRG.

The GRG name has now been consigned to the dustbin of banking history, with a new restructuring unit rising from its ashes, which, we are told, does things differently. RBS has said it will compensate those found to have been wronged through its complaints process

But even though this will result in a bill in the hundreds of millions of pounds, there is still a sense that RBS is going through he motions, that it has got to that point only after having been dragged kicking and screaming to it and that, with its desire to “move on”, it doesn’t really want to learn from this affair and would instead prefer to sweep it under the carpet as soon as possible.

RBS still, after everything that has gone on, gives the distinct impression that it just doesn’t get it.

]]>RBS restructuring arm did not turn around ‘vast majority’ of businesses – CEOhttps://www.suerbs.com/rbs-restructuring-arm-not-turn-around-vast-majority-businesses-ceo/
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:04:42 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1248RBS restructuring arm did not turn around ‘vast majority’ of businesses – CEO Reuters, 30.01.18 Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS.L) restructuring business did not turn around the “vast majority” of small businesses it worked with, Chief Executive Ross McEwan said on Tuesday in response to lawmakers’ questions. Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross...

]]>RBS restructuring arm did not turn around ‘vast majority’ of businesses – CEO

Reuters, 30.01.18

Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS.L) restructuring business did not turn around the “vast majority” of small businesses it worked with, Chief Executive Ross McEwan said on Tuesday in response to lawmakers’ questions.

Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan speaks during an interview with Reuters at Canary Wharf in London, Britain July 7, 2015. REUTERS/Neil Hall

McEwan and RBS Chairman Howard Davies were being grilled by members of the Treasury Select Committee, which has challenged state-backed RBS on its treatment of troubled small businesses during and after the financial crisis.

RBS’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG) handled around 12,000 struggling firms between 2007 and 2012, some of which accuse the bank of pushing them into bankruptcy to pick up their assets on the cheap.

Nicky Morgan, who chairs the Treasury committee, asked McEwan about a statement he made in 2014 after the publication of a report into GRG’s conduct by law firm Clifford Chance.

“I want to take you back Mr McEwan to a statement you made following the publication of the Clifford Chance report into GRG … In that statement you said, and I quote, that GRG ‘turns around the vast majority of businesses that it works with’. That isn’t true, that wasn’t true, was it?” Morgan said.

“In 2014, absolutely, when you look at the stats that have come through … it is not true,” McEwan said in response.

He was referring to figures from a subsequent report into GRG conducted by consultants Promontory, which was commissioned by the Britain’s financial regulator the Financial Conduct Authority.

To date, the FCA has refused to publish the Promontory report in full. Instead it has published a summary, which a committee-appointed barrister said was an accurate reflection of the report’s full contents.

Morgan said the summary of the report represented a “litany of poor conduct”, but while it recognized numerous failings it did not uphold the most serious accusations against the bank.

McEwan, who took up his job at RBS in 2013, told the committee he would inform Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA, that if the regulator wished to publish the full report RBS would not object.

The FCA said after the hearing it would publish the Promontory report in full once it has obtained the consent of those who provided information and any individuals who are identified.

The watchdog is already using information from the report to see if it should take further action.

“We will approach these individuals, once the work on the focused investigation is completed, to ask for their consent to publish,” the FCA said in a statement.

RBS has set aside 400 million pounds ($565.88 million) to cover the bill for complaints made by customers over their treatment by GRG.

“[This] is not a cap, it’s an estimate of what we think this process will cost, and if it costs more it costs more,” Davies told the committee.

The FCA in 2016 effectively cleared RBS of many of the allegations by customers. RBS has admitted some wrongdoing over its handling of small businesses, but stopped short of saying they were deliberately pushed into administration.

The scandal has hampered RBS’s efforts to reform its image and move on from the financial crisis. The British government is preparing to sell down its 70 percent stake in the bank.

]]>Metro Bank boss slams ‘toxic’ RBS culture during his tenurehttps://www.suerbs.com/metro-bank-boss-slams-toxic-rbs-culture-tenure/
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:01:56 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1246Metro Bank boss slams ‘toxic’ RBS culture during his tenure Evening Standard, 30.01.18 Metro Bank boss Craig Donaldson on Tuesday told of the “toxic” culture at Royal Bank of Scotland during his time working there. Donaldson, who worked for RBS from 2005 to 2009, told the BBC: “It was a miserable place to be,...

Metro Bank boss Craig Donaldson on Tuesday told of the “toxic” culture at Royal Bank of Scotland during his time working there.

Donaldson, who worked for RBS from 2005 to 2009, told the BBC: “It was a miserable place to be, my wife said I was a zombie.”

There was a toxic atmosphere higher up in the bank, Donaldson claimed.

“Everybody was competing against themselves internally,” he added. “It was just a vicious environment where people were always trying to climb on the backs of others. It was focused on how can I get on rather than how can I make the business better.”

The Treasury Select Committee has already made public a GRG memo entitled Just Hit Budget! as evidence of its attitude to small firms.

RBS chief Ross McEwan has said this document should “be viewed in context” because it was written by a junior manager.

“At no time did it form part of GRG or RBS policy,” he added. “The culture, structure and way RBS operates has changed fundamentally.”

The memo also said that GRG staff should “let customers hang themselves”, and that “missed opportunities will mean missed bonuses”.

Sir Vince Cable earlier criticised McEwan for his failure to show “genuine contrition” over the bank’s mistreatment of small business customers in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

]]>Time to end the auditing merry-go-roundhttps://www.suerbs.com/time-end-auditing-merry-go-round/
Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:00:04 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1243Time to end the auditing merry-go-round The Guardian, 30.01.18 Ross McEwan, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, looks ridiculous. For roughly two years, he has resisted publication of the regulator’s so-called “skilled person’s report” into the bank’s bad treatment of small and medium-sized business customers. Now RBS has performed a stunning U-turn. The...

Ross McEwan, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, looks ridiculous. For roughly two years, he has resisted publication of the regulator’s so-called “skilled person’s report” into the bank’s bad treatment of small and medium-sized business customers. Now RBS has performed a stunning U-turn.

The bank “no longer thinks it is useful to have an argument” with the Financial Conduct Authority, explained chairman Sir Howard Davies. The bank is prepared to see the document published, even though it disagrees with some of its findings.

Why the change of heart? Presumably because RBS has looked evasive every time MPs have asked awkward questions. McEwan himself was obliged to admit on Tuesday that a claim he made in 2014 was not true. He had said the “vast majority” of businesses that entered RBS’ Global Restructuring Group had been turned around, but his definition of a turnaround included insolvency.

Meanwhile, Promontory – the firm that wrote the report for FCA – has turned the screw. Its boss, Tony Boorman, painted RBS as obstructive and defensive. McEwan, in resisting publication, found himself defending the indefensible.

The version of the report that appears at the end of this process will probably be heavily redacted or edited – the FCA still has to respect the legal rights of individuals named in the report. But McEwan’s previous intransigence is bizarre. He didn’t have to play hard. He made a very bad call.

]]>We need to see the full regulator’s report to clear the stench of RBShttps://www.suerbs.com/need-see-full-regulators-report-clear-stench-rbs/
Sun, 28 Jan 2018 14:56:54 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1240We need to see the full regulator’s report to clear the stench of RBS Sunday Times, 28.01.18 Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan comes up before the beak this week. Well, the Treasury select committee to be precise. The honourable members are set to quiz McEwan over the bank’s controversial Global Restructuring Group’s...

]]>We need to see the full regulator’s report to clear the stench of RBS

Sunday Times, 28.01.18

Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan comes up before the beak this week. Well, the Treasury select committee to be precise. The honourable members are set to quiz McEwan over the bank’s controversial Global Restructuring Group’s (GRG) treatment of small businesses.

Committee chair Nicky Morgan tends to play to the gallery more than her predecessor, the forensic Andrew Tyrie — remember her criticism of Theresa May’s penchant for expensive leather trousers? Morgan’s penchant for a headline could lead to uncomfortable moments for McEwan should she opt to use his appearance to generate heat rather than light.

The headline McEwan wants is for the committee to concur with his insistence that while mistakes were made in GRG, there was no policy to engineer the failure of small businesses to snap up their assets at a knockdown price.

That may prove to be a hard sell.

Bank documents that used analogies such as “Rope: sometimes you need to let customers hang themselves” betray an appalling culture within RBS.

McEwan has stressed the author of the 2009 memo no longer works at the lender and that he has changed the bank’s culture. Many believe the changes are more cosmetic than real.

McEwan’s comments to me last year in which he criticised former customers for “badmouthing” RBS and making “false accusations” suggests to many the culture remains the same. RBS chairman Sir Howard Davies, who will also testify to the committee, has told me there was too much regulation of banks in the UK. Davies was head of former regulator the Financial Services Authority before he chaired the bank that took most public money after its near collapse.

The impression created from the testimony of RBS directors to the Treasury committee over branch closures this month was one of sublime indifference. Customers, it appears, can still go hang, while RBS serves itself.

All this undermines McEwan’s achievements at 71% state-owned RBS. The bank is poised to post its first profit, even if a potential multibillion-dollar penalty from the US Department of Justice over toxic mortgage bonds will likely put it back in the red the year after.

Laith Khalaf, banking analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “McEwan deserves some credit for putting to bed some of the legacy issues, most notably settling shareholder rights litigation and long-running claims from the US housing agencies. Brexit also cast a shadow over the Williams & Glyn separation, which has now been resolved by RBS through funding for challenger banks.”

The committee’s focus should be on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which only bothered to investigate GRG after being embarrassed into it by then Treasury minister Sir Vince Cable.

It has fiercely resisted pressure to publish its investigation, by consultancy Promontory, but has been forced to issue summaries. The latest — released late last year after MPs threatened to force publication — made clear there was “widespread inappropriate treatment” of small businesses and that the bank systematically mistreated firms in GRG.

The summary also stated there was no evidence that GRG deliberately sent small businesses to the wall to asset-strip them and improve RBS’s balance sheet.

Using parliamentary privilege this month, Cable quoted the unpublished document as stating: “Management knew or should have known that this was an intended and co-ordinated strategy and that the mistreatment of business customers was a result of that”.

The FCA insists releasing further details of the report will prejudice its ongoing investigations into individuals at RBS who could still face sanction.

But publishing its report in full would offer the City an assurance that the £400m RBS set aside in 2016 for GRG claims is sufficient. It would also vindicate, or contradict, McEwan’s insistence that RBS acted correctly in most GRG cases. As things stand, the bank’s reputation will remain tainted by GRG after it has settled its other issues.

More important is the fact that the longer the FCA’s report remains in the shadows, the more the watchdog’s own credibility, impartiality, and effectiveness will be called into question.

For everyone concerned in this sorry, sordid affair — RBS, the small businesses lining up to take the bank to court, and the regulator — the best way to conclude this debacle is to place the FCA report in the public domain. The regulator must be transparent — or the stench surrounding GRG will forever taint our regulatory system.

]]>Business needs banks on sidehttps://www.suerbs.com/business-needs-banks-side/
Thu, 25 Jan 2018 14:53:47 +0000https://www.suerbs.com/?p=1238News Guardian, 25.01.18 Now that the EU Withdrawal Bill has passed its House of Commons’ stages and goes to the House of Lords, the Commons is reverting back to a familiar weekly pattern, with a day of debate inspired by backbenchers. Whether last Thursday’s backbench debate on banking was the game-changer being claimed, time...

Now that the EU Withdrawal Bill has passed its House of Commons’ stages and goes to the House of Lords, the Commons is reverting back to a familiar weekly pattern, with a day of debate inspired by backbenchers.

Whether last Thursday’s backbench debate on banking was the game-changer being claimed, time will tell. The motion was about RBS’s Global Restructuring Group and SME’s (Small to Medium Enterprises), though the debate ranged more widely than just one bank. At the heart of the motion was the proposition that several banks deliberately managed the closure of businesses to suit the banks interests. This was a claim that was made in the Tomlinson Report, which was set up to investigate what happened. Calling in loans and selling off assets, it is alleged, recapitalised the banks and made income for the banks, as well as for the professional advisors involved in the process.

Meanwhile, the clients were left powerless and facing huge debts. Some of their stories are harrowing. I raised two constituency cases, but there are many more. I also pressed the minister on the issue that if there is criminality involved, where are the resources to allow the police to investigate it properly? In response, the Treasury minister acknowledged the harm done to businesses and to the level of trust in the banks. He said that he would examine the case for an independent tribunal system. We need that; we also need regulators with teeth.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy and they need a banking system working with them and not against them.